IS KIRKLEES GETTING A FAIR DEAL

KIRKLEES GRANT

All local authorities are told by Central Government that they have to do certain things (Statutory Duties), and in many cases government prescribe how they have to be done. To pay for these things the government decides how much businesses each pay in Rates, they decide what the “Rateable Value” is and what it is multiplied by to work out how much you pay. The Rate is collected by your council, who keep half and hand the other half over to Central Government.

They also value your house to decide how much you pay in Council Tax, they then tell your council how much they can charge, the council collects this money and keeps it all.

Because the sums above are not enough to pay for the services that the government say they have to do, every year each council are given a “Revenue Support Grant” (in Kirklees £22,824,955). This grant used to be worked out on a formula on a basis of need; this was scrapped by Eric Pickles and replaced by a system at the whim of the current minister.

Now there are reasons why different councils get different amounts of grant the most obvious being the number of people each authority serves. So if we divide the grant by the population of each authority we can compare the grants. This is over simplistic but a starting point.

In West Yorkshire the differences are at the least interesting;

	Population	Grant	Per Head
Bradford	534,300	£48,538,924	£90.84
Wakefield	336,800	£22,348,765	£66.36
Leeds	781,700	£46,482,482	£59.46
Calderdale	209,800	£12,357,086	£58.90
Kirklees	437,000	£22,824,955	£52.23

 

This is nowhere as simple as the explanation above implies, no one can say that Local Government Finance is simple; it is believed that the two people who do understand it have both been committed. That does not mean we should not try to understand it, especially as the government are doing yet another review of how Local Services are financed, to some degree dictated by the crisis of funding Social Care and the massive impact underfunding has both on the lives of individuals and the finances of the NHS.

There is something wrong with a system that sees the average council tax for a Band D property in London being £500 cheaper than a Band D property in Yorkshire. There is something wrong in a system that allows a Minister to give extra cash to where he lives. There is something wrong where Kirklees is the 322^nd (of 326) worse funded Local Authority in the UK.

The local Kirklees Conservatives think there is nothing wrong with the system, the then leader of the Conservative Group on Kirklees stated at a council meeting. Kirklees is getting less now because the Labour Government gave them too much money, and all the Government is doing is making it fair by giving councils down south more money.

I am not optimistic about the review.

 

KIRKLEES FUNDING LOSS

KIRKLEES FUNDING LOSS £176m

On three occasions the Nation (not Kirklees) have voted for Austerity, this has given the government the excuse to slash local services to give them chance to cut taxes for their rich friends who have been too lazy to use tax havens to hide their money. This has meant that Kirklees have had our grant cut by £176m.

This cut has not been universal, from day one the Conservatives have fiddled with the grant schemes to help rich Tory Areas. The Kirklees Tories in their usual fashion deny the reality of the situation. Is this because they are lacking in intelligence or are they overawed by deference.

 

  



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



celebration grant money

 

 

                    This year as you are aware is the centenary of the right of women the right to vote, there is some funding available if you want to organise an event to celebrate this momentous event. Sadly but perhaps no surprise the money available is not that great,

 

Funding: the Women’s Vote Centenary Grant Scheme is a £1.5 million government fund that will support local and community groups in celebrating the centenary of women gaining the right to vote. The grant scheme has two types of funds: approximately 150 Small Grants of between £300 to £2,000 for grassroots projects to run small-scale events and activities. There will be three bidding rounds during 2018. An online application will be available here from 4th January 2018. There will also be up to 30 Large Grants of between £2,000 and £125,000 bidding round dates to be confirmed soon

 

 

Regards

PICKPOCKET PICKLES PERNICIOUS PLOTS #1

PICKPOCKET PICKLES PERNICIOUS PLOTS #1

Anyone looking at all the information produced by national and local newspapers and by the BBC and the Audit Office can have missed the shift of Government Grant from the North to the South, and in a Robin Hood reversal, from the Poor to the Rich. Eric in his Southern looking for new ways to move money south, this series highlights the ways he is doing this.Mansion has to deny his Northern origins to prove to his southern cronies that he is now “One of them”. To do this he spends his days

The most obvious and transparent plot was to simplify the system, by ignoring need. No more was the length of roads that had to be maintained, the number of old people who had to be cared for, the number of children who had to be looked after, etc. etc., would have to be counted, and more conveniently the principle of giving more money to those in greater need could be ignored. Eric froze the grant at the point he thought suited him, then cut everyone’s grant and reallocated it through the devious schemes I will describe later. Note there is never any “New” money, in fact Eric as the Minister for Local Government takes great pleasure being at the front of the queue when cuts are being allocated by the Cabinet, “me sir, me sir” is his mantra. He is in the position where he can cut as much as he likes and leave it to someone else to work out the details, and more importantly take the blame.

Think about it, a very simple way to look at how ignoring need works is to look at gritting. Up north, not only is it, by definition, North, it also tends in many places to be higher above sea level, so you can see that by giving everyone the same grant, those down south have spare cash to spend on whatever is their whim.  

Unfortunately for those in the North, who tend to be in the areas of greater need this meant under the Pickles re-allocation their grant was diverted south to where Eric now lives.